South Elgin restaurant offers lots of flavor without sugar, gluten, wheat or soy

A new restaurant in South Elgin wants to bring you in with what they don't offer.

AJ's Hangout owner Lance Bell says you won't miss the sugar, gluten, wheat and soy.

"For us, the food tasting great to amazing is the very first thing," Bell said. "It has to be that for anything to move forward. Then it has to meet our four criteria of low-carb, no sugar, no soy and no wheat."

So what's left?

"I get asked that all the time," manager Tiffany Kramer said. "We're big meat and cheese people."

The menu items at AJ's are all low-carb, including nine different sliders made with its "power bread," a high-protein combination of almond flour, egg, spices, and mozzarella and cream cheeses.

Slider options run the gamut from a beef filet slider with goat cheese to a corned beef Reuben slider.

"Our bread is the thing we get the most positive comments about," Bell said. "And when you add a tenderloin filet with all those toppings, it's hard for that not to be an amazing experience."

Sides include rutabaga "freedom fries," mashed rutabaga, which can be topped with bacon, cheddar and sour cream, and bean-less, low-carb chili. Dessert pies - Key lime, chocolate and cashew butter - are cream cheese-based, sweetened with monk fruit and feature butter almond crusts. All their craft sodas are sugar-free, including root beer, lemon-lime, cola and cream soda.

The restaurant at 586 Randall Road near Caputo's is set up in a cafeteria-style. So customers can grab their choices, heat them in a bank of microwaves, if necessary, and then seat themselves or take it to go.

"If you're looking for a quick lunch, in and out fast with a chair, we've got you covered," he said. "But if you want to sit down and be served in a traditional restaurant environment, we have that covered as well."

Bell said that after more than a decade in the operations side of restaurants, including time with Outback Steakhouse and founding Flatlander's Restaurant and Brewery in Lincolnshire, he thought he was done with that side of the business.

"Sometimes there are things I don't want to do that I'm called to do," he said. "And I'm also called to be obedient."

That calling, he said, was to open AJ Sliders in St. Charles as "a business with a mission," representing Christian values in the marketplace. That spot opened in 2020 and is primarily a takeout and delivery hub with just a few tables. He hopes to open up to eight "Hangouts," with large dining rooms like in South Elgin, in the Fox Valley area from Aurora to Elgin in the coming years.

Bell said part of his mission is giving back to the community. He works primarily with four local charities - Fox Valley Christian Action, Hero's Rest, Lazarus House, and Wayside Cross. In addition to donating money and food to those groups, he offers employment to people who may have struggled with addiction or homelessness.

The restaurant will do fundraising events for other local groups.

Bell hopes that the food helps people as well.

"A big part of this is education because a lot of people who try low-carb fail because they quit too early," he said. "When you truly remove sugar from your body, your brain becomes clearer, you're more lucid, and one of the biggest benefits to this lifestyle is that I'm never hungry. Ever."